5.  The applicant was born on 18 November 1940 and lives in Lipovača, Croatia.
6.  In the period between 1 January 1980 and 30 November 1992 the applicant was insured by the Croatian Pension Fund (Hrvatski zavod za mirovinsko osiguranje) as an agricultural entrepreneur. She lived in Klokočevik, near Slavonski Brod.
7.  In November 1992 the applicant left Klokočevik and moved to Lipovača, part of the so-called “Serbian Independent Region of Krajina”, a self-proclaimed entity established on the territory of Croatia. She stopped contributing to the Croatian Pension Fund.
8.  On 6 April 1998 the Slavonski Brod Office of the Croatian Pension Fund (Hrvatski zavod za mirovinsko osiguranje, Područna služba u Slavonskom Brodu) accepted a payment by the applicant of 4,978 Croatian kunas (HRK) in respect of pension contributions for the period from 30 November 1992 to 31 December 1994. It issued a certificate of payment, which read as follows:
“This is to confirm that on 6 April 1998 the person contracted to pay contributions, BOŽIĆ MARIJA, made a full payment of the contributions due to the [pension fund]. This certificate ... serves as evidence of the registration of the pension-qualifying period in the central register, and may not be used for other purposes.
For the insured person the [period concerned is from] 1 January 1980 [to] 31 December 1994.
FOR THE REGISTRATION OF THE PENSION-QUALIFYING PERIOD”
9.  On 21 November 2000 the Slavonski Brod Office of the Croatian Pension Fund accepted another payment by the applicant of HRK 11,663 in respect of pension contributions for the period from 1 January 1995 to 31 May 2000, and issued a certificate in that respect.
10.  On 22 November 2000 the applicant, having met the age criteria applicable at the time, asked the Croatian Pension Fund to grant her pension.
11.  On 12 April 2002 the Slavonski Brod Office of the Croatian Pension Fund decided of its own motion that the applicant had ceased to have the status of an insured person as of 30 November 1992, when she had wound up her agricultural activities.
12.  On 22 April 2002 the Slavonski Brod Office of the Croatian Pension Fund further decided to refuse the applicant’s request to grant her pension. It found that the applicant’s pension-qualifying period amounted to twelve years and eleven months, namely the period from January 1980 to November 1992, which was insufficient to obtain a pension. The applicant did not appeal against that decision. Instead, in April 2002 the applicant lodged an appeal against the first decision of the Slavonski Brod Office of the Croatian Pension Fund (see paragraph 11 above), arguing, inter alia, that she had followed the instructions of the Croatian Pension Fund and had paid sufficient pension contributions to qualify for a pension.
13.  On 13 May 2002 the Central Office of the Croatian Pension Fund (Hrvatski zavod za mirovinsko osiguranje, Središnja služba) dismissed the applicant’s appeal and upheld the first-instance decision concerning her status, without referring to the applicant’s contribution payments. The applicant lodged an action in the Administrative Court (Upravni sud Republike Hrvatske) against that decision, reiterating her previous arguments.
14.  On 28 September 2006 the Administrative Court dismissed the applicant’s action as without merit. The relevant part of the judgment reads as follows:
“It is not clear from the file whether the applicant continued to pursue the agricultural activity on the occupied territory, and even if she did, she would have been insured as an agricultural entrepreneur with the competent bodies operating on the occupied territory. Hence, the applicant should have submitted a request for recognition of the pension-qualifying period pursuant to the ... Validation Act ...
Since the administrative action itself reveals that the plaintiff left the territory where she had been living and working as an agricultural entrepreneur, which was the ground for her pension insurance, the defendant body correctly established the relevant facts and applied the relevant law when dismissing the plaintiff’s appeal against the decision of the first-instance administrative body, which had found that the applicant had lost the status of an insured person because she had failed to meet the statutory conditions for it.
The plaintiff’s objection that she had paid pension contributions based on the request of the Croatian Pension Fund has no influence on the correctness of the impugned decision because she left her residence where she had had the status of an agricultural entrepreneur.”
15.  The applicant lodged a complaint with the Constitutional Court (Ustavni sud Republike Hrvatske) against that judgment, reiterating her previous arguments and invoking, inter alia, Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.
16.  On 8 April 2009 the Constitutional Court dismissed the applicant’s complaint as without merit, endorsing the reasoning of the lower authorities. The relevant part of that decision read as follows:
“As regards the alleged violation of the constitutionally guaranteed right of ownership (Article 48 § 1 of the Constitution) and the right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions (Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention ...), the Constitutional Court finds that the above-mentioned rights of the applicant have not and could not have been violated by the impugned acts terminating her status as an insured person – agricultural entrepreneur.”
That decision was served on the applicant’s representative on 22 April 2009.
17.  On 23 January 2012 the applicant instituted administrative proceedings with the Vukovar Office of the Croatian Pension Fund (Hrvatski zavod za mirovinsko osiguranje, Područna služba u Vukovaru). She requested, inter alia, that her request for a pension be reconsidered in the light of her contributions between 1980 and 2000, that the pension-qualifying period from 1 December 1992 to 31 December 1994 be formally validated (see paragraph 29 below), and that she be paid a pension as of 19 November 2000.
18.  On 22 March 2012 the Vukovar Office of the Croatian Pension Fund rendered two decisions. First, it refused the applicant’s request for a pension, repeating the arguments of the Slavonski Brod Office of the Croatian Pension Fund (see paragraph 11 above). Secondly, it refused the applicant’s request for validation of the pension-qualifying period from 1 December 1992 to 31 December 1994, arguing that she had failed to prove her status as an agricultural entrepreneur on the territory of the Republic of Croatia that had been under the United Nations authority (corresponding to the “Serbian Independent Region of Krajina”). The applicant appealed against both decisions.
19.  On 12 December 2012 the Central Office of the Croatian Pension Fund accepted the applicant’s appeal against the first decision. It annulled the decision and decided that the period from 1 January 1980 to 31 May 2000 should be deemed as the applicant’s agricultural entrepreneur pension-qualifying period (mirovinski staž individualnog poljoprivrednika), thereby recognising the supplementary contributions paid by her. The relevant part of that decision reads as follows:
“The appeal is accepted and the decision of the ... Vukovar Office ... of 22 March 2012 is hereby annulled.
Marija Božić, born on 18 November 1940, was insured for the purposes of a pension as an agricultural entrepreneur from 1 January 1980 to 31 May 2000.
...
As it is not disputed that the Slavonski Brod Office of the Croatian Pension Fund calculated the due amount of the applicant’s pension contributions on 21 November 2000, for the period from 1 January 1980 to 31 May 2000, and that the applicant paid those contributions on the same day to the Slavonski Brod Office, which in return issued a certificate, it has been decided as stated in the operative part of this decision.”
20.  On 13 December 2012 the Central Office of the Croatian Pension Fund accepted the applicant’s appeal against the second decision, annulled it but held that the issue covered by the Vukovar Office’s second decision of 22 March 2012 had already been settled in its decision of 12 December 2012.
21.  In view of the above decisions of the Central Office of the Croatian Pension Fund, the applicant returned to the Vukovar Office of the Croatian Pension Fund with a request for a pension. On 21 March 2013 the Vukovar Office of the Croatian Pension Fund decided that the applicant had the right to a pension as of 1 August 2011. In setting that date it relied on section 32(3) of the Pension Insurance Act (see paragraph 28 below) and took 24 January 2012 (see paragraph 17 above) as the date on which the applicant had submitted her request. That decision was served on the applicant on 26 March 2013 and on the applicant’s representative on 23 May 2013.